Altered the title, let's not go jumping to conclusions at least without Nintendo willing to verify anything, they DID have a really good trade in promo so it's not impossible for Xenoblade at least to have been copies from people who barely touched the game, or even shuffled from other stores.

This is probably the real test actually, given its special packaging and the fact far more time passed.

I loved Metroid Prime 1. Loved the atmosphere and the idea that it really felt like you were in some futuristic armor.

Probably one of my top 5 favorite games. I've replayed that game more than any other game... ever. I think that says something (about me).

I remember when I first played it, it was back in the summer of 2004, just before my final year of college. I got an "EMERGENCY" position working in the cafeteria for the forest fire fighters (BLM), because Interior Alaska had so many fires, it was declared a state of emergency. So I was given this job, but I had to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, on my feet doing kitchen odd jobs. The pay was rediculously high for a summer job, and I was working 84 hours a week... I was racking it in. But I was ridiculously tired, sore, and worn out. I actually had to take a sick day because I had blisters so bad I couldn't walk. I had been playing Super Smash Bros. Melee for the past year back in school, and was dead set on buying a GameCube. I went to the store, bought a silver gamecube, Smash Bros, Metroid Prime, and bought them out of Wavebirds (had to come back the next week to get one more).

So imagine, I come home at 8pm after a brÃ¼tal day, I put this game on, and from the very first moment on Tallon V, I was hooked. There's just something so perfect about that game, I can't even think of any flaws. Every cavern and corridor just oozes with atmosphere and mood. It has just enough backtracking to keep the nostalgia going (wait... I remember this place!) but not get old. It gets creepier and creepier as it goes on, but it's really the only Metroid game to tackle creating beautiful, serene places too (Phandrana). The music is extraordinary and fresh, and it paves new ground while being absolutely truthful to it's roots.

There were some amazing moments in that game:

- Coming back to the Tallon Overworld, stepping to the lookout over the crashed frigate and going "Oh my god, that's huge and... different!" The overworld music has changed, and you know things are getting tense.- Landing on Tallon Overworld and hearing the iconic metroid theme, but with very subtle beginnings so you bearily notice at first. You hear the roar of the ship and it's raining.- Stepping out into Phendrana for the first time, a new kind of area never tackled by a metroid game before, the music is beautiful, the color scheme is different from anything you've encountered, and you're suddenly charged by an incredibly dangerous and menacing monster with huge jaws!- diving down deeper and deeper into the Phazon Mines. It gets darker and darker, and creepier, and all that's left is the horrible chimes that the phazon creates. You've get the X-Ray scope and suddenly you realize that there are many things around you can't see (creepy!). And then you're faced with the Omega Pirate: a 100foot monster who can disappear and all you see is his nervous system!

Unfortunately, I think it was the last great Metroid game. Prime 2 was no more than an "echo" of it's predecessor that just lost all of the magic of the original. Prime 3 had some good parts, but the fact that there are other people around, and your mode of transit is a sterile space flight just killed the mood. I also HATE what they did to Metroid Prime. "Dark Samus", what a horribly cliche and uninteresting villain. They should have kept him a giant deranged monster. Also, and I think this is just the absolute catastrophe, is the complete lack of Chozo. The Chozo are as important to Metroid as Samus herself. They raised her, made her suit, spent their existence fighting metroids, space pirates, and lost. It gave the game an emotional connection, a sense of timelessness, and the series just hasn't been the same since.

Other M was beyond a total disaster, let's not even think about it.

I really hope someone steps up, someone who really knows and loves the series, and wants to push it forward while recapturing the essence of what made it so great. But after Other M, it might be a very long time.

Metroid Prime 1 was an excellent game. It felt like Super Metroid in 3D (although fighting the Chozo Ghosts got old fast). And if you had Fusion you could also play in a special suit you almost never got to see.

Metroid Prime 2 felt kinda like a pre-Halo western FPS. A greater emphasis on keys, ammo, similar looking corridors, and various shades of grey and brown landscapes than MP1. At least it still felt vaguely Metroid-y and the Fortress area was pretty rad. There's also a multiplayer that's pretty amusing.

Metroid Prime 3 felt like a Halo clone. Way too much emphasis on the Spece Mahreins versus the Space Pirates all while the Phazon lurked over the horizon. A dynamic that felt way too much like Halo's Spece Mahreins versus the Covenant all while the Flood lurked over the horizon. Not many of the areas felt that large or interesting, although the Observatory was pretty bitchin' and Valhalla did space derelict incredibly well.

Metroid Prime Hunters is not appearing in this set. A fun little game that either should've been made later in the DS's life or during the 3DS's run as it barely fit a pallet swapped/heavily asset recycled/minimalistic single player on there. At least the multiplayer is supposedly pretty good if rather unbalanced.

Hunters was a mistake, IMO. For all intents and purposes it should be a fine portable Metroid Prime game, I mean, the graphics were sufficient enough, there were some decent ideas. But the controls were AWFUL, the locations boring and repetitive, and it introduced me to the premise that no Metroid game should go planet hopping... which inevitably hurt Prime 3 later.

I'll re-itterate that I thought Prime 3 was quite a step up from Prime 2 though. I thought the locales were interesting and almost as good as Prime 1. However, the whole setup was so bad that the atmospheric feel suffered greatly. Yes, its overall setup is Haloish, but the design is decidedly not: still smaller areas, lots of navigational puzzles, really interesting skills. But it still can't hold a candle to Prime 1.

Hunters was a mistake, IMO. For all intents and purposes it should be a fine portable Metroid Prime game, I mean, the graphics were sufficient enough, there were some decent ideas. But the controls were AWFUL, the locations boring and repetitive, and it introduced me to the premise that no Metroid game should go planet hopping... which inevitably hurt Prime 3 later.

I'll re-itterate that I thought Prime 3 was quite a step up from Prime 2 though. I thought the locales were interesting and almost as good as Prime 1. However, the whole setup was so bad that the atmospheric feel suffered greatly. Yes, its overall setup is Haloish, but the design is decidedly not: still smaller areas, lots of navigational puzzles, really interesting skills. But it still can't hold a candle to Prime 1.

Didn't Kid Icarus Uprising use similar controls to Hunters for the flying sections though? Because I'm pretty sure they did.

Kid Icarus had wonky controls too, but not as bad as MP:H. Problem is that 3D Metroid requires a lot more controls than KI, so they had to pepper the entire unit with random controls and gestures. Let's face it, first person games were never meant to be controlled with a stylus.

But at least it's not the bizarro 2d/3d mess that Other M was.

I actually really feel that Metroid works really well as a first person than 2nd person in 3D. One of the things that really makes the series is exploring these natural alien worlds. Sure, there is some construction built-in to them, but the vast majority of the settings are natural. It then is really jarring to have a giant yellow/orange robot suit standing in the middle of it. It was fine in the 2d sidescroller games because the player was quite small, but 3D games require much closer cameras, so you have Samus taking up a much larger part of the screen and it destroys the natural quality of the environment.

BTW: I don't want to see another "Samus explores giant spaceship" game. Both Fusion and Other M do that and I found them to be the weakest in the series... too much emphasis on sterile, man-made construction. Super Metroid, Metroid Prime, and Zero Mission are the highlights of the series because they concentrate so heavily on essentially natural environments with bits of installation built-in.

Kid Icarus had wonky controls too, but not as bad as MP:H. Problem is that 3D Metroid requires a lot more controls than KI, so they had to pepper the entire unit with random controls and gestures. Let's face it, first person games were never meant to be controlled with a stylus.

But at least it's not the bizarro 2d/3d mess that Other M was.

I actually really feel that Metroid works really well as a first person than 2nd person in 3D. One of the things that really makes the series is exploring these natural alien worlds. Sure, there is some construction built-in to them, but the vast majority of the settings are natural. It then is really jarring to have a giant yellow/orange robot suit standing in the middle of it. It was fine in the 2d sidescroller games because the player was quite small, but 3D games require much closer cameras, so you have Samus taking up a much larger part of the screen and it destroys the natural quality of the environment.

BTW: I don't want to see another "Samus explores giant spaceship" game. Both Fusion and Other M do that and I found them to be the weakest in the series... too much emphasis on sterile, man-made construction. Super Metroid, Metroid Prime, and Zero Mission are the highlights of the series because they concentrate so heavily on essentially natural environments with bits of installation built-in.

I thought the control scheme wasn't too bad for Hunters. You had the left or right shoulder pad to shoot, the D-pad or the face buttons to move around with, the center of the touch screen to aim with, the sides of the screen to turn, a tab on the screen to morph into Morph Ball, and double tapping the screen to jump with.

Also, second on the tired of artificial environments. Outside of the Prime series, Samus has only been on Zebes and SR388 in terms of planets.

Yeah, when did it become a sci-if installation series? I mean, there were some installations in the first games, but they were built right into the rock and became part of the environment. There may have been a token spaceship section, but the bulk is alone on a wasted planet. Maybe ruins of a long dead civilization, temporary militar bunkers of alien raiders, but that's sorta what made the Metroid series what it was: incredibly organic and alien. Prime captured that. Echos did too largely, but failed on other fronts. But starting with Fusion, suddenly the designers got a jones for "Space ships that housed natural environments," which is unfortunate for a number of reasons. For one, creators are thinking less about actual organisism and more on "what would be cool here" since a man-made natural environment can contain just about anything with no explanation. Suddenly you walk from an ice area to a fire area with no transition, because it's a bio dome! It just takes the organisism completely out, even if it "looks" natural. Secondly, there's no ancient mystery to witness or uncover. If there's anything, it's recent and feels minute by comparison. And lastly, and probably most damaging, it leaves it open to having NPCs, which totally destroys the feeling of isolation and loneliness that made the series what it was.

I mostly pop in occasionally to give my two cents on certain controversial things, so if you disagree then send a PM, because I generally don't check for replies in threads in case I feel like replying and then things get heated/derailed.

Well, apparently those new copies don't even come in the original steelbook cases... So it's definitely not worth 85$. Since the original print was labeled as a "limited edition", it would actually make sense for Nintendo to re-realease a regular edition in a standard Wii case at 40-50$. But this whole "vintage" games magically appearing at Gamestop is sketchy as best. The unused Xenoblade codes coupled with the new packaging for Metroid do seem to confirm the theory of a quiet reprint masked as used games.

Well, apparently those new copies don't even come in the original steelbook cases... So it's definitely not worth 85$.

I'd still argue that its worth the $85 just because trying to get the games individually is at best going to set you back $90 (optimistically speaking) if not closer to $150 given the market and Nintendo's evergreen prices. Not to mention the Gamecube + a controller & memory card you're going to need for 1 & 2.